Prominent security firm BitDefender has found a huge amount of malware links throughout Facebook, with threats found in users’ news feeds and walls. In a study among 14,000 users who had installed the BitDefender Safego app, about one in five had malware in their news feeds.
While Facebook have done a lot to upgrade its security and protect its users, this study goes to show that there is still a lot of work to be done. A BitDefender spokesperson has said “We stipulated that we were talking about 20 percent of the Safego users, not of all Facebook users,” and Facebook themselves certainly seem to think this isn’t an accurate representation of their entire community.
Facebook spokesperson Fred Wolens said in an interview with TechNewsWorld: “The tools and systems we’ve built, combined with concerted campaigns to arm users with the information to make smarter and safer decisions online, have limited the number of Facebook users impacted by security issues to less than 1 percent, and that’s since the founding of the site more than six years ago.”
BitDefender have conducted a detailed study of all the malware they found, and 60% of the attacks were found to have a malicious intent. 16% of the malware detected used worms that spread through attention grabbing messages on the popular social networking site, and 21% allowed users to perform actions that are normally prohibited by the network.
While Facebook continue to deny the extent of these problems, it is just as likely that Safego can detect a level of malware that Facebook can not – or do not want to admit to. A BitDefender spokesperson explained: “We use our cloud scanning technology in which there’s a synergy of all our products – our antispam, antiphishing and antimalware technology,” adding “We also look at applications that don’t necessarily have a malicious payload like stealing money but spread like a worm instead.”
While Facebook have done a lot to upgrade its security and protect its users, this study goes to show that there is still a lot of work to be done. A BitDefender spokesperson has said “We stipulated that we were talking about 20 percent of the Safego users, not of all Facebook users,” and Facebook themselves certainly seem to think this isn’t an accurate representation of their entire community.
Facebook spokesperson Fred Wolens said in an interview with TechNewsWorld: “The tools and systems we’ve built, combined with concerted campaigns to arm users with the information to make smarter and safer decisions online, have limited the number of Facebook users impacted by security issues to less than 1 percent, and that’s since the founding of the site more than six years ago.”
BitDefender have conducted a detailed study of all the malware they found, and 60% of the attacks were found to have a malicious intent. 16% of the malware detected used worms that spread through attention grabbing messages on the popular social networking site, and 21% allowed users to perform actions that are normally prohibited by the network.
While Facebook continue to deny the extent of these problems, it is just as likely that Safego can detect a level of malware that Facebook can not – or do not want to admit to. A BitDefender spokesperson explained: “We use our cloud scanning technology in which there’s a synergy of all our products – our antispam, antiphishing and antimalware technology,” adding “We also look at applications that don’t necessarily have a malicious payload like stealing money but spread like a worm instead.”
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